Saint Innocent of Alaska (August 26, 1797 - March 31, 1879), also known as
Saint Innocent of Moscow (Russian Митрополит Инноке́нтий) was a
Russian Orthodox priest,
bishop,
archbishop and
Metropolitan of Moscow and all Russia. He is known for his
missionary work, scholarship and leadership in
Alaska and the Russian Far East during the 19th century. He is known for his great zeal for his work as well as his abilities as a scholar,
linguist, and administrator. He was a missionary and later a bishop and archbishop in Alaska and the Russian Far East. He learned several native languages and was the author of many of the earliest scholarly works about the native peoples and their languages, as well as dictionaries and religious works in their languages. He also translated parts of the
Bible into several native languages.
Biography
Saint Innocent was born
Ivan Evseyevich Popov (Иван Евсѣевич Попов) on August 26, 1797 into the family of a church server in the village of Anginskoye, Verkholensk District,
Irkutsk Province, in
Russia. His father, Evsey Popov, died when Ivan was six.
In 1807 Ivan entered the
Irkutsk Theological Seminary, where the rector renamed him Veniaminov in honor of the recently deceased Bishop Veniamin of Irkutsk. In 1817 he married a local priest's daughter named Catherine, and on May 18, 1817 he was
ordained a
deacon of the Church of the Annunciation in
Irkutsk. After he completed his studies in 1818, he was appointed a teacher in a
parish school; and on May 18, 1821 he was ordained a priest to serve in the Church of the Annunciation. In Russian he was known as Father Ioann, the religious version of Ivan.
At the beginning of 1823, Bishop Michael of Irkutsk received instructions to send a priest to the island of
Unalaska in the
Aleutian Islands of Alaska. Father Ioann Veniaminov volunteered to go and on May 7, 1823 he departed from Irkutsk, accompanied by his aging mother, his wife, his infant son Innocent, and his brother Stefan. After a difficult one-year journey, they arrived at Unalaska on July 29, 1824.
After Fr. Ioann and his family built and moved into an earthen hut, he undertook the construction of a church on the island and set about studying the local languages and dialects. He trained some of his parishioners in construction techniques and with them undertook the construction of a church, which was finished the following July.
Father Ioann's
parish included the island of Unalaska and the neighboring
Fox Islands and
Pribilof Islands, whose inhabitants had been converted to
Christianity before his arrival, but retained many of their own religious beliefs and customs. Father Ioann often traveled between the islands in a
canoe, battling the stormy ocean of the
Gulf of Alaska.
His travels over the islands greatly enhanced Father Ioann Veniaminov's familiarity with the local dialects. In a short time he mastered six of the dialects. He devised an alphabet of
Cyrillic letters for the most widespread dialect, the Unagan dialect of
Aleut and, in 1828, translated portions of the Bible and other church material into that dialect. In 1829 he journeyed to the
Bering Sea coast of the Alaskan mainland and preached to the people there.
In 1834, Father Ioann was transferred to
Sitka Island, to the town of Novoarkhangelsk, later called
Sitka. He devoted himself to the
Tlingit people and studied their
language and customs. His studies there produced the scholarly works
Notes on the Kolushchan and Kodiak Tongues and
Other Dialects of the Russo-American Territories, with a Russian-Kolushchan Glossary.
In 1838, Father Ioann journeyed to
St. Petersburg,
Moscow and
Kiev to report on his activities and request an expansion of the Church's activities in
Russian America. While he was there, he received notice that his wife had died. He requested permission to return to Sitka. Instead, it was suggested that he take
vows as a
monk. Father Ioann at first ignored these suggestions, but, on November 29, 1840 he was
tonsured a monk. He chose the name
Innocent in honor of Saint Innocent, the first bishop of Irkutsk (†1731, commemorated on November 26), and was elevated to the rank of
Archimandrite.
On December 15, 1840, Archimandrite Innocent was
consecrated Bishop of
Kamchatka and
Kuril Islands in Russia and the Aleutian Islands in Russian America. His
see was located in Novoarkhangelsk, to which he returned in September 1841. He spent the next nine years in the administration of his
diocese as well as on several long missionary journeys to its remote areas. On April 21, 1850, Bishop Innocent was elevated to
Archbishop. In 1852 the Yakut area was admitted to the Kamchatka Diocese, and in September 1853 Archbishop Innocent took up permanent residence in the town of
Yakutsk. Innocent took frequent trips throughout his enlarged diocese. He devoted much energy to the translation of the scriptures and service books into the
Yakut (Sakha) language.
In April 1865 Archbishop Innocent was appointed a member of the
Holy Governing Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church.
On November 19, 1867, he was appointed the
Metropolitan of Moscow, replacing his friend and mentor,
Saint Filaret, who had died. As metropolitan, he undertook revisions of many church texts that contained errors, raised funds to improve the living conditions of impoverished priests and established a retirement home for clergy.
Innocent died on March 31, 1879. He was buried on April 5, 1879 at
Trinity-St. Sergius Lavra, outside of
Moscow.
Sainthood
On October 6, 1977, the
Russian Orthodox Church, acting on the official request of the
Orthodox Church in America, made Innocent a
saint. His
feast day is celebrated twice a year — on October 6 (for those churches which follow the
Julian Calendar, this date falls on October 19 of the
Gregorian Calendar) in commemoration of his
glorification (canonization) as a
saint, and March 31 (April 13), in commemoration of his repose. He is widely venerated as
Equal-to-apostles[citation needed].
Innocent is honored with a
feast day on the
liturgical calendar of the Episcopal Church (USA) on March 30.
Bibliography
- Paul Garrett, Saint Innocent, Apostle to America, Saint Vladimir's Seminary Press; Crestwood New York, 1979
- Oleg Kobtzeff, "Ruling Siberia: the imperial power, the Orthodox Church and the Native people", Siberica, British Siberian Studies Seminar, Cambridge, vol. II, 1984, pp. 6–15.
O
Ιννοκέντιος της Αλάσκας, (κατά κόσμον
Ιβάν Ευσέγιεβιτς Ποπώφ – Βενιαμίνωφ) ισαπόστολος (
26 Αυγούστου 1797-
31 Μαρτίου 1879), ήταν Ρώσος
ιερέας,
επίσκοπος,
αρχιεπίσκοπος και
μητροπολίτης της
Μόσχας και Πασών των Ρωσιών. Είναι γνωστός για το ιεραποστολικό του έργο στην
Αλάσκα και τη ρωσική Άπω Ανατολή κατά το
1800, καθώς επίσης καθώς και για τον μεγάλο ζήλο που επέδειξε στο έργο του. Ως λόγιος επέδειξε σημαντικές ικανότητες κατανόησης των γηγενών
γλωσσών και των τοπικών ιδιωμάτων στις περιοχές που επισκέφθηκε. Έγινε επίσκοπος και αρχιεπίσκοπος της Αλάσκας και της ρωσικής Άπω Ανατολής. Στη διάρκεια του βίου του έμαθε αρκετές από τις γηγενείς γλώσσες και ιδιώματα και υπήρξε συγγραφέας πολλών πρώιμων δοκιμίων για τους γηγενείς και τις γλώσσες τους, όπως επίσης και πολλών
λεξικών και θρησκευτικών έργων σε αυτές τις γλώσσες.
Μετέφρασε επίσης τμήματα της
Βίβλου σε αρκετές γηγενείς γλώσσες. Εκοιμήθη στις 31 Μαρτίου 1879 και ετάφη στην
Λαύρα της Τρόιτσε-Σεργκίγεβα.
Στις
6 Οκτωβρίου 1977 η Ρωσική Εκκλησία ενεργώντας εκ μέρους της Ορθόδοξης Εκκλησίας της Αμερικής ανακήρυξε τον Ιννοκέντιο άγιο. Η μνήμη του εορτάζεται δύο φορές τον χρόνο στις
6 Οκτωβρίου και στις
31 Μαρτίου. Το
1994, κατά τη διάρκεια
ανασκαφών κοντά στον
Ναό του Αγίου Πνεύματος στην Μονή Τρόιτσε-Σεργκίγιεβα ανακαλύφθηκαν τα λείψανα του αγίου Ιννοκέντιου, τα οποία τιμήθηκαν τόσο από πιστούς της
Αμερικής όσο και από πιστούς της
Ρωσίας.
